From Traditional Candying to Vacuum Sugar Infusion: What Changed?
When many people taste candied fruits for the first time, they will definitely wonder if they just soaked the fruits in melted sugar water. It's not that simple. After you really enter the food processing industry, you will find that the sugar pickling process is more complicated than you think. Why are the candied fruits on the market bright in color and good in taste, but some of them are just sweet in appearance and have no taste inside, and they are hard to eat? Sometimes, after a few days, the fruit will have water oozing out. These essential differences are that the sugar-soaking process itself is different.
In the traditional production of sugar stains, most factories still use the most common process, atmospheric pressure soaking. Just put fruits or vegetables into syrup or diluted sugar water normally, and only soak them for a long time to let the sugar slowly penetrate. Mainly, this kind of low-cost equipment is relatively simple, and it only needs a stainless steel vat, which is often done by many small workshops.
However, there are also many problems in the traditional sugar soaking method.
First of all, the speed of sugar liquid entering the fruit is relatively slow. Raw materials with thick fibers, such as mango, pineapple, wax gourd, and orange peel, are only soaked naturally, so it is difficult for sugar to penetrate evenly in a short time. Some products need to be soaked for more than ten hours or even longer, which will also slow down the overall production efficiency.
Secondly, the taste of finished products is not stable enough. Because of the uneven penetration of sugar, many products are prone to being "sweet outside and tasteless inside." When consumers eat it, they will obviously feel that the sweetness only stays on the surface.
In addition, the traditional long-term high-temperature soaking will easily affect the color of the fruit itself. If the raw materials stay in a high-temperature environment for too long, they will easily be oxidized, and the color will gradually darken, which will not look fresh enough. Now consumers pay more and more attention to the natural feeling and appearance of products, so the change of color and state will also directly affect the attractiveness of products.
It is precisely because of these problems that more and more food processing enterprises begin to pay attention to the vacuum sugar dipping tank.
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In fact, the principle of vacuum sugar soaking can be simply understood as follows: through the pressure change, the sugar solution can easily enter the fruit. This can not only shorten the sugar-soaking time but also make the sugar distribution more uniform.
This process upgrade usually brings several relatively intuitive changes:
First, the sugar soaking speed is faster.
The process that used to take more than ten hours to complete can now be completed in a few hours. Some factories can also achieve continuous production, greatly reducing the waiting time and improving the overall production efficiency.
Second, the taste is more uniform.
Sugar liquid can enter the fruit more fully, so the finished product will not have obvious problems of "sweet outside and light inside. "This is very important for preserved fruits, preserves, and high-end snack foods.
Third, the color and state are more natural.
In a vacuum environment, the contact between fruit and air is reduced, and the oxidation situation is also reduced, so the color of the finished product is closer to the original fresh state. Nowadays, when many consumers buy fruit products, the first thing they pay attention to is color, transparency, and overall appearance.
Fourth, reduce the loss of raw materials.
Traditional soaking at high temperature for a long time is easy to make the pulp soft and damaged. OrangeMech's vacuum sugar soaking process can improve the penetration efficiency, minimize the damage to fruit tissues, and keep the product shape more complete.
Nowadays, more and more food enterprises have begun to apply vacuum sugar-soaking pots in different fields. For example, candied fruit processing, freeze-dried fruits, and sugarcoated vegetables: these large processing plants pay more attention to automation and data control because of various considerations when selecting equipment. In the past, with the experience of the old master, everything was done by manpower, but once the output was expanded and the quality control was strict, the manpower could never be stable, and the PLC control system was still needed to manage the vacuum degree, temperature, and time in a unified way. This not only reduces the manual error but also facilitates the later standardized production.
Take some food processing projects that OrangeMech participated in as an example. Many customers just wanted to increase the output at first, but after using the vacuum sugar soaking process, they found that the biggest change was actually the product stability. If you want your brand to maintain product consistency in the increasingly fierce competition in the industry, it is often more important than simply expanding production. You can consult OrangeMech. We have many cases about food processing equipment for your reference, and we certainly look forward to serving you!